Jack Dempsey v Bernard Hopkins

What sets Tunney apart from the other challengers is that he looks absolutely superb on film. Brennan and Gibbons also look good, but Tunney is something else again.


Dempsey-Gibbons contemporary fight film is up on YT in its entirety by the way, for anyone who hasn't seen it. Fascinating watch.



[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uDuNfZGC7g[/ame]

 

Well, as i've said, finding out that there were 15% less boxers during Charles's reign as HW champ than there were during Tunney's reign as HW champ wouldn't change my pick based upon their respective performances on film. It wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. Do you really think it would, to anyone?




:yep

Maybe not though. The problem, as I see it, in ranking chess players across the ages isn't relative ELO rankings, but the evolution of opening theory. If you go back far enough you will find practices that are now conisdered absurd were at one time considered absolutely correct - mainly gambits, like the Mora or the King's which have now been refuted. Even worse, you can go back 2 years and find that generally accepted opening moves in more complicated systems, like the Scheveningen for example, have already been refuted.

In other words, whilst boxing appears on film to have been modern since, say 1945 for example, chess only became truly modern last year...and will again next year...and next year. So comparing greats from other eras becomes impossible due to the fact that the more modern competitor will ALWAYS have the superior opening theory. This is so crucial that we can favour someone like Micheal Adams quite comfortably over Morphy or Capablanca becauase those great ye olde players just won't get out of the opening with any kind of advantage (and might actually be flat out beaten if they are using King's Gambit, Marshall Gambit, etc.)

Even so, the technical aspects of the greatest chess players can be comfortably appraised by great analysts in pursuit of a general regard for their pure ability.

The best example is Tal. When computer analysis became the norm, Tal was "refuted" as many of his most famous combinations were found to be unsound. Contrarily, Fischer's seemed mostly sound. But Kasparov, some years later, refuted the refutation. He pointed out that it took a Grandmaster of considerable strength in conjunction with a hypermodern computer to refute these combinations consistently and that Tal's combinations could be judged sound across the board.

Still, judgements were made regarding Tal and Fischer and their technical abilities compared to modern chess players.

It is actually easier in chess because it deals in absolute truths oftentimes, whereas this is not the case in boxing. But it shows technical analysis is the bedrock of cross-era comparison I think.

I don't think the type of work that's gone into Tal, Fischer and Bronstein has been done into Morphy. I agree it would be very interesting. If you had said Capablanca, however, I would have disagreed - Capablanca is generally regarded as being amongst the very best in terms of pure talent. Of course, it is possible to find dissenting voices, just as it is possible to find people on our forum who rank Ali at #5 for HW. Such dissent is not reason enough to toss out technical analysis as trustworthy.

We have a name for such people. "Boxrec warriors." It's not a term of endearment as I understand it! People become uncomfortable in judging fighters h2h without footage on this forum, and they are right to. This is why fighters like McAuliffe and Sullivan tend to be ranked in terms of greatness only. Sometimes a fighter whose opponents were widely filmed (Greb for example) and they look great, we can start to make certain judgements.

Speaking personally, who a fighter beat is a matter of greatness and how they look on film is a matter of ability. These are two different things and should not be confused. Of course, you might want to look at who a guy beat in order to make certain judgements about styles.

We don't know in the sense that we don't know that the sun is going to come up tomororw, but I have no problem in saying that Ezzard Charles is better at boxing than Garing Lane.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHlnvavHU0A&list=UUklnC_m-tR3-XmK7e-4Cy-Q&index=1&feature=plcp[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a9CYH5EVSY&feature=related[/ame]

I'm as satisifed with this judgement as I am with my judgement that the sun will come up tomorrow. You are interested in splitting hairs more finely, journeymen from the 50's versus journeymen from the 90's or whatever, and that's fine, but the principles of drawing judgements are the same.

That is why you wouldn't use their ELOs you would use your eyes to make judgements about their abilities on film.